The following resource page was created by Brenda Sherry and Peter Skillen for PBL Teacher Workshops:

What is PBL?

Project-Based Learning is an educational approach that falls under the umbrella of inquiry learning and is described in many different ways. Here are some references:


1) Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real World Projects in the Digital Age by Susie Boss and Jane Krauss (ISTE, 2007)

• Projects form the centerpiece of the curriculum - they are not an add-on or extra at the end of a "real" unit.
• Students engage in real-world activities and practice the strategies of authentic disciplines.
• Students work collaboratively to solve problems that matter to them.
• Technology is integrated as a tool for discovery, collaboration, and communication, taking learners places they couldn't otherwise go and helping teachers achieve essential learning goals in new ways.

2) The Buck Institute Project-based learning:

• focuses on the central concepts and principles of a discipline
• involves students in problem-solving investigations and other meaningful tasks
• allows students to work autonomously to construct their own knowledge, and
• culminates in realistic products

3) Powerful Learning: What we know about teaching for understanding by Linda Darling-Hammond (Jossey-Bass, 2008)

PBL involves completing tasks that typically result in a realistic product, event, or presentation to an audience.
They are:

• central to the curriculum
• organized around driving questions that lead students to encounter central concepts or principles of a discipline
• focused on a constructive investigation that involves inquiry and knowledge building
• student-driven, in that students are responsible for making choices and for designing and managing their work
• authentic, by posing problems that occur in the real world and that people care about

4) George Lucas Educational Foundation (Edutopia) Project-based learning:

• is curriculum fueled and standards based
• asks a question or poses a problem that each student can answer
• asks students to investigate issues and topics addressing real-world problems while integrating subjects across the curriculum
• is a method that fosters abstract, intellectual tasks to explore complex issues.

Resources

• Inquiry Schools - Great site for examples, movies etc.
• Neil Stephenson's Introduction to Inquiry Based Learning
• What does the research say?
• Tips for Project Design Project Design.pdf
• Natural Curiousity - http://www.naturalcuriosity.ca/
• A step-by-step guide to Project Planning - from the Buck Institute for Education's Online resource for PBL . Click to download the 8 page planner as a word doc or a pdf ProjectPlanningForms.doc ProjectPlanningForms.pdf
• Questions when planning projects PBL Project planning questions.pdf
• Adobe Youth Voices Excellent resources are available here. You will need to register at no cost to get them. It's worth it if you are doing anymedia work with students.
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  Tips for //creating authentic tasks//
• Main Course Not Dessert: Project-Based Learning vs. Projects from www.bie.org
• From Kim Trefz - A teacher’s journey into PBL Prezi
• PBL Videosmodeling some best practices
• Gary Stager: What Makes a Good Project.pdf and Raising Our Standards: Developing projects that endure goodprojects2.pdf
• The Teachers's Guide to PBL - From High Tech High & Learning Futures (England)
• Designing to Learn by Diane McGrath
  

  Design.pdf
  

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Tony Vincent shares some great ways to integrate hand-held technologies into your PBL units:


Project Based Learning in Hand from Tony Vincent on Vimeo.

• The Construction Zoneblog by Peter Skillen - some relevant articles:
  • ZPD - Who's in Charge Here?
  • PBL - Who IS in Charge? What Tools can Help?
  • Scaffolding for Deep Understanding
  • Journal Writing - Just Another Worksheet
  • PBL - The New Worksheet
  • Collaborative Projects: What Does It Mean to Co-construct?
  • Why Should Students Collaborate?
  • Project Based Learning Slideshow
  • Hidden - A Project that Worked
  • The 'Loafer' Effect and Project-based Learning
  • The Science of Passion Based Learning
  • PBL: Am I Doing It Right?
  • Project Based Learning: Don't Start with a Question

• EdutopiaResources for PBL
  • Edutopia Core Strategy: Project-Based Learning- a complete site about PBL
  • Edutopia's Blog on Project-Based Learningby Suzie Boss
  • Debunking Five Myths About Project-Based Learning - John Larmer's Blog Post
  • Edutopia Community Discussion for PBL
  • A reading list of for PBL Learning

• The Learning Zone blog- some PBL references from Brenda
  • Digifest - Digital Storytelling Festival
  • Getting projects started
  • Reggio Emilia Approach
  • Project-Based Learning Explained
  • Global Projects Connecting Kids
  • Machinto: A Global Peace Project
  • PBL Experts are Among Us
  • Back to the Classroom - Part 1